In your hidden garden Blue delphiniums grow And white phlox walk in stateliness Row on row.
Sudden call of color Breathless blue and white— Into my dark sorrow came Flame-clear light.
In my inner garden Down through all the years I shall see your face sometimes Through my tears.
Two gardens sit side by side in Irene Fisher's short poem: a real one belonging to someone else, and an inner one the speaker carries around. The first holds blue delphiniums and white phlox standing "in stateliness," row after row, a picture of order and calm beauty. The speaker is grieving, and the poem suggests the "you" has been lost, though it never says how. Judging by the imagery, the garden was once a place of light, and its colors cut through her sorrow like a "flame-clear" flash. Notice how the blue and white arrive suddenly, almost breathlessly, as if joy surprised her in the middle of pain.
The last stanza turns inward. The garden becomes a memory she keeps "down through all the years," and in it she will occasionally glimpse the beloved's face. The final words, "through my tears," keep the mood tender rather than purely sad: the loss is lasting, but so is the beauty.